• DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.141101
• Corpus ID: 119253623

Anomalous CMB polarization and gravitational chirality

@inproceedings{Contaldi2008AnomalousCP,
  title={Anomalous CMB polarization and gravitational chirality},
  author={Carlo R. Contaldi and Jo{\~a}o Magueijo and Lee Smolin},
  year={2008}
}

• C. Contaldi, J. Magueijo, L. Smolin
• Published 18 June 2008
• Physics

We consider the possibility that gravity breaks parity, with left and right handed gravitons coupling to matter with a different Newton’s constant and show that this would affect their zero-point vacuum fluctuations during inflation. Should there be a cosmic background of gravity waves, the effect would translate into anomalous CMB polarization. Non-vanishing TB (and EB) polarization components emerge, revealing interesting experimental targets. Indeed if reasonable chirality is present a TB measurement would provide the easiest way to detect a gravitational wave background. We speculate on the theoretical implications of such an observation.